


Divergence

by Assassin_J



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: A Smidge of Hurt/Comfort, ALL OF THE EMOTIONS, AU of an AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Desmond will use the Apple, Drama, F/M, Gen, Grieving, Guilt, Heavy Angst, I might as well go ahead and tag the following things too:, Inspired by a Review, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Modern Day, Mpreg, Sorry for the short chapters, Trans Female Character, emergency surgery, he'll stop being an asshole soon I promise, premature baby, there will be a lot of crying, there will be some happy fluff later I promise, there will be transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 07:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2540204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Assassin_J/pseuds/Assassin_J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Okay you know my story <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2295608/chapters/5048438"><em>Kryptokos</em></a>? The one with Angsty!Mpreg!Desmond? This is an alternate route it could have taken beginning in <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2295608/chapters/5113973">chapter 7</a>.</p><p>As before, Desmond is twenty-four and a half weeks pregnant with a baby Juno forcibly conceived in him. Nobody knows about it except for the Mentor, the Medic, and the Man himself. One night, he wakes up in sudden agonizing pain.</p><p>But in this version, he's not growing a pseudovagina. He's gone into extremely premature labor, and there's no way for the baby to exit his body.</p><p>TL;DR: what if Kryptokos, except the baby is born while Desmond is still an angsty asshole</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Kryptokos](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2295608) by [Assassin_J](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Assassin_J/pseuds/Assassin_J). 
  * Inspired by [Review for Kryptokos](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/81089) by Apparition of a Fox. 



"Oof," Spencer huffed as he lowered Desmond onto a cot in the infirmary. "Is he going to-"

"Okay, thanks for bringing him, you can go now." Cutting off the man's question, Stacey quickly shooed him out and locked the door.

She turned the patient on his side to take the weight off his back, and had just cut off his boxers to see where the bleeding originated when he came to.

"Aaaagh..." He twitched, crossing his legs instinctively.

"Don't do that! Hold still, I'm trying to clean you up."

"Stacey... What's happening?" Fear was evident in Desmond's weak voice.

"I don't know yet, okay? Try to stay calm. What do you remember from before you lost consciousness?"

"I..." He swallowed. "Pain. Blood."

"What kind of pain? Where?"

"Really bad.... from the thing in my guts... Aaagh!" He cried out sharply.

Stacey saw the swelling on his abdomen tense up into a firm hemisphere. "Oh my god." A hand flew to her mouth, and her voice fell to almost a whisper. "Desmond, you... I think you've gone into labor."

"Nnn... no!" he grunted, eyes closed tight. "Can't... don't..."

"There's nowhere for it to go." Her features stiffened in resignation. "I'll have to operate."

Desmond whimpered in agony and then went limp as he passed out again.

 

* * *

 

Stacey flung open the infirmary doors, finding the rest of the Assassins in a loose huddle in the hall. "Okay everyone, I have to perform an emergency operation on Desmond, and I'll need a couple of surgical assistants. Which of you can follow instructions while staying calm and quiet, without bothering me asking questions about what's happening?"

"What? What's going on?"

"Right, that's Shaun disqualified," the medic said pointedly. "Anyone else?"

Rebecca raised her hand. "Uh, I'll help."

Spencer chimed in with a "Me too."

"Okay, then come on." Not wasting any more time on the rest of the confused group, she gestured the two volunteers into the infirmary, tossed them surgical smocks and masks, and instructed them to wash their hands thoroughly.

As soon as they entered, they saw Desmond lying unconscious on the cot, an IV drip in his arm, sterile drapes covering most every other part of him save his distended belly, which had been shaved and scrubbed with iodine.

_What's wrong with him? Burst appendix? Some sort of tumor? But why wouldn't she just say so?_

These and other questions came to Spencer's and Rebecca's minds, but they remembered Stacey's requirement and dutifully suppressed them, figuring an explanation would be forthcoming later.

Stacey palpated her patient's abdomen, then took a deep breath to steady herself before making a slow incision across the base of the bulge. The electric scalpel cauterized the cut as she went, and when she was done, she set it down and picked up two metallic instruments that resembled blunt hooks. These she used to spread apart the incision, then looked up at Spencer. "I need you to hold these retractors in place."

He did so, and Stacey poked shaky fingers through the small opening, feeling around for something. She then picked the scalpel back up and made another incision in some smooth pink organ inside of Desmond.

There was a burst of translucent liquid, and she abruptly barked, "Rebecca! Get ready to take it."

Rebecca held out her hands, presuming that Stacey was about to excise the tumor or whatever, and would then hand it over to her to dispose of while the medic sewed up Desmond.

Stacey reached further inside the inner incision, and when she pulled her hands back out, Rebecca and Spencer were incredibly shocked to see what they held.

It was definitely not a tumor. It was definitely not a burst appendix either. It was unmistakably a baby. A tiny, blood-covered baby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how far on this I'm going to write... but the plot bunny wouldn't leave me alone after I read [a review someone left on chapter 6 when I posted it on FFnet](https://www.fanfiction.net/r/10789951/), where the reader had clearly thought Desmond was already starting to have the baby: "Holy Llamas, this is good! I kinda feel sorry for Desmond, cause he's gonna be in pain."
> 
> Then I began to construct how things would have gone if that had been the case. Because my mind works like that. I just get some idea and have to write that shit down and expand on it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spoilers for a crazy fact about the first civ  
> (but then again it's a pretty basic fact that every true AC fan should know since the second game)  
> also I guess spoilers for modern day plot of ACB, ACR, and ACIII  
> I tend to err on the side of caution when warning for spoilers

"Time of birth, 3:18 AM." Stacey handed the baby over to her stunned assistant.

Rebecca stared blankly at the miniscule human. It was barely moving, and she could almost hold its entire body in just one hand. _This... this was inside of Desmond. A baby. Desmond had a baby inside him. Holy shit. How in the world is that possible?_ She looked up at the medic, hoping for some explanation, but Stacey was busy, extracting the placenta and then beginning to suture the incisions.

Rebecca glanced at Spencer, silently asking him _Did you know about this?_

He shook his head. If it weren't for the surgical masks, they would have both seen their own gapingly astonished open mouth reflected on the other's face.

Rebecca felt unsteady on her feet from the sheer surprise overwhelming her. She stumbled into a chair and looked down at the frail child again. _It's a boy. Desmond just had a baby boy. And a preemie, to boot._

"I'll examine the baby once I'm done here, okay? For now, try to get him to cry," Stacey directed her. "See if his lungs are adequately developed."

Rebecca wasn't quite sure what to do. She gently pinched a fold of skin on the boy's arm. In response, he moved weakly, but didn't make a sound.

"Put him in there," Stacey said, gesturing with her head to something on another cot behind her: a large towel-lined plastic tub under a heat lamp, with an oxygen tank jerry-rigged to the outer side, connected to a mask lying inside the tub. "And turn on that oxygen, he'll need all the oxygen he can get."

Sewing Desmond back up took a little longer than cutting him open had. Stacey didn't say anything else except to let Spencer know when it was okay to remove the retractors. For the next quarter hour, the only sound was the steady beeping of the machine monitoring Desmond's heart rate.

Rebecca could do nothing except watch the barely perceptible rise and fall of the newborn's chest as he struggled to breathe.

When the operation was finally complete, Stacey replaced her bloody gloves with a fresh pair and came to inspect him. "...Doesn't look too good, does he?"

This comment suggested that the prohibition on talking had been lifted, so Rebecca ventured a response as she took off her surgical gear. "Obviously not."

"Well... this is about normal for twenty-four weeks' gestation. His lungs only barely just started producing surfactant. Wish we had a proper incubating chamber. But this thing I set up here will have to do," Stacey said, patting the side of the tub.

Spencer removed his gloves now too. "I... uh... Did anyone else know?"

"Besides us? Just Desmond's father, and Desmond himself," she replied, adjusting the oxygen mask, which was as big as the boy's entire face.

"Himself... " Spencer rubbed his head. "You sure that's the right word to use?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Sorry, but this baby here would seem to indicate otherwise! I can't imagine why he- why or how **she** hid it for twenty-six years, but 'Desmond' is obviously a girl!"

Stacey frowned. "Desmond has always been male. The Apple giving him a uterus didn't change that."

Spencer stumbled back a bit, as if buffeted by a strong gust of wind. "The... the Apple? As in, Apple of Eden? Hold up, you're saying this is all an **illusion**? You're saying this baby isn't real?"

The newborn grimaced, his hypersensitive ears upset by the man's raised voice. Stacey shushed Spencer. "Keep your voice down, okay? If it is an illusion, it's near enough to real so as to make absolutely no practical difference. For all intents and purposes, Desmond just actually had a premature baby."

"Well... one of the few things we know for certain about the Apples," Rebecca said, a bit shakily, "is they can't create and sustain illusions on their own. Someone has to use it, has to be consciously willing the illusion into existence. The one we have is locked up and nobody's gone near it since December, and if any others have been found, they're nowhere near us. So this... this is all real."

Stacey nodded. "Yes, when Desmond's body was controlled by Juno, she did more than just make him kill Lucy. It seems that First Civ technology can rearrange body parts and reorganize cells into completely different organs."

Rebecca allowed herself a tiny smile. "I guess they did create humans, after all. Impregnating a man would be cake by comparison."

"So... What now?" Spencer asked.

"I need to examine the baby further, and one of you should go tell William what's happened, and the other one needs to keep an eye on Desmond."

Spencer turned back to look at the unconscious man. "Is he gonna be okay?"

"Physiologically, he tolerated the procedure as well as could be expected. The difficult part will be his recuperation period." Stacey sighed. "Once he wakes up, he'll be panicky, angry, and who knows what other emotions. He'll probably put up quite a fight when I tell him he has to stay in bed for the next few days. He won't want to do it, but he needs to, in order to give his body time to recover."

 

* * *

 

William Miles was in his office, staring blankly at his computer screen, but his vision was unfocused and he couldn't pay attention to the emails he was supposed to be reading. He sipped anxiously at his coffee-and-Jack-Daniels mixture. He wasn't usually a drinker, but this wasn't a "usual" situation by any means. His son, his only son, his son who had been lost to him for nine years, who had almost been lost again when Abstergo got to him, had almost been lost a third time to the coma, and a fourth time to activate the planetary shield, was again in danger.

The Mentor was shaken from his despair by the sound of someone knocking and calling his name. "Bill?"

"God! Spencer!" He bolted from his desk and threw open the door. "What's happened? Is Desmond alright?"

"He's... " William didn't like that pause. "He's still out. Not 'fainted' out, though. Anesthetized. But, yeah, he seems to be alright."

He sighed with immense relief. "Good... And?"

Spencer knew what was meant by this. "And... it's a boy. The boy is... not alright."

"Be more specific."

"He's like eight inches long and he can barely breathe!" Spencer said, quietly, but obviously upset. "...Stacey says it's fifty-fifty whether he'll make it."

"Fifty-fifty?!" came Shaun's voice as he popped his head into the doorway. The other two men looked at him, unsure how to begin explaining. "Erm... sorry. Didn't mean to eavesdrop... but I'd like to be included in this discussion. Desmond and I aren't the best of chums by any measure, but I still care a little bit what happens to him. And... I must have misheard this part... it almost sounded like you said something was eight inches?"

"The baby."

Shaun blinked. "Baby? What are you on about, Bill? The Animus? He hasn't been in for months. He's been actively avoiding it, from what I hear."

William sighed. "Desmond is, or rather, he **was** pregnant."

"He... wha?"

"Was pregnant." William slumped back into his chair, picking up his drink again. "Yet another complication in our lives, courtesy of Ezio's Apple. The baby is the one who has a coin-toss chance at survival."

"Apple made him pregnant... Pregnant with a baby." Shaun adjusted his glasses, trying desperately to wrap his mind around this new information, to incorporate it into his mental concept of the Desmond Miles he'd gotten to know. "Well, I did notice he'd been rather podgy and moody of late... So that's what this sudden operation was all about?"

"Yes. He wasn't due for several more months, but it-"

"Sorry, you **knew** about this?"

"Yes. The rest of you would have been informed eventually, when the time was right. Seems that time has come sooner than we'd thought. There's no use trying to keep it secret any longer."

Shaun turned and walked slowly back down the hall. "Bloody hell. A baby.... Bloody, bloody hell."


	3. Chapter 3

William knocked gently on the infirmary door, and Stacey bade him enter. The scene that greeted him was dismaying. Desmond was lying motionless, IV and heart monitor still attached, and loosely covered by a medical gown, almost but not quite opaque, for a large rectangle of gauze could be seen underneath it covering the place from which the baby had been removed.

 _The baby._ William wrested his gaze away from his son, crossing the room to look at his son's son in the makeshift incubator. The tiny form nearly brought him to tears. "He's... so small..." He gingerly reached to touch the infant, but then decided against it and pulled back his hand. "...Fifty-fifty, you said?"

Stacey nodded. "I'm doing everything I can with the limited resources we've got. I've sent Colin into town to get formula, since I'm not quite sure we can just give him cow's milk."

A feeble sentence fragment wafted across the infirmary. "... with my stomach?" The mentor and the medic could just barely make out the words, and they strode together over to Desmond's cot.

His eyes were open, but they were bleary and unfocused. Stacey took gentle hold of his shoulder. "Shh... you're going to be okay."

"Uhn... Tasey?... Wha'happen?" His mouth had difficulty forming syllables.

William pulled a chair up beside his son. "You just had a surgery."

A tattooed arm, the one that wasn't constrained by the IV, shakily felt at the dressing on his torso. "Surg..."

"A C-section, to be precise."

Desmond's pupils dilated and the beeping that was his heart rate increased its rhythm. "C... c-sect... the parasite..." His eyes spun around the ceiling and eventually found their way to Stacey's. "You... you cut it out... finally... Thank god.... It's over." He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, pulse slowing to normal again. "It's over... I can... f'get about all that... move on w'my life..."

William and Stacey exchanged a glance, both having realized his assumption, wondering how to break the news to him that, no, it was not exactly "over", that there was a baby to care for now.

In the end, his father chose to be blunt about it. "It's a boy."

The beeping became frantic once more. "Daaad..." Desmond moaned in anguish. "You can't... are you... you saying it's alive?"

"Just barely. He was born so prematurely, his lungs can hardly function. Ms. Russ has him on supplemental oxygen."

There was no response to this for almost a full minute, and then: "...waste of time."

"Perhaps, but we've got to try."

"No! Just let it die!" Desmond seemed to have gained a better command of his speech by now.

"We can't do that," came his father's vexed voice.

He tossed his head petulantly against the limp pillow. "Sure you can! Just don't do anything to help it live!"

Without a thought to his son's medical status, William smacked him across the face.

"Mr. Miles!" Stacey shrieked.

Desmond was too stunned and in pain to speak.

"The Animus has shown you **how many** centuries of our history?! You of all people should remember the Creed! If he dies because we withhold medical care, it would be no different than if he dies by one of our blades! 'Stay your blade from the innocent', goddamnit!"

At the sound of the word "innocent", Desmond suddenly found his voice again. "Innocent! Hah! It's not innocent! It invaded my body! It basically raped me!"

"If anybody raped you, it was Juno!" William shot back. "That child had no more say in the matter than you did! He is the very definition of innocent! We're all pro-choice here, but he's born now, which makes it no longer up to you!"

Desmond made a sound somewhere between a growl and a groan, for he didn't want to admit that his father was right. "But... it'll compromise our hideout, with its crying and shit!"

"Don't give me that. We're in the middle of a goddamn forest, not around the corner from a guard patrol."

Unable to think of a response to that, Desmond settled for another groan.

"Would you like to see him?" Stacey offered quietly.

"Why?" her patient spat. "What the hell would I want to see it for?"

"He's your son."

"I don't want it." Desmond flatly continued to use the impersonal pronoun. "I didn't want it inside me, and I don't want it shitting up my life now that it's out. I never want to see it. Take it away from here."

"He has your genes," Stacey told him, attempting to kindle some affection.

" **Fuck** my genes, they're nothing but trouble. Genes are the reason I got kidnapped and all that other shit. They're the reason I had to touch the fucking Apple, and that means they're the reason that fucking thing was inside me."

William got up and led the medic away. "Let's not even try to talk to him if he's going to be like this." They retreated to the incubator, and stared down at the boy unwanted by his father. "I don't suppose he has a name yet?"

Stacey shook her head. "I... I had thought Desmond should name him, of course. But... if he won't even acknowledge the baby as a person-"

"He certainly won't give him a name," finished William. "Well... what do you think?"

"I..." She swallowed. "I think we'd better give Desmond some time to get over the shock."

"I mean what do you think would be a good name?"

"I know what you meant, and I still think we should give him time. He may come around in a day or so, accept the boy as his son, and choose a name."

William sighed. "I suppose there's no real rush. It's not as if we're filling out a birth certificate anytime soon."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> November is Prematurity Awareness Month, and November 17 is World Prematurity Day.
> 
> Just thought I'd mention that.

"Hello Desmond," Shaun said warily as he entered the infirmary with Colin and Rebecca.

"Go away."

Shaun waggled his finger. "Hey now, that's **my** line, and come on, man, we're trying to be matey and check up on you."

Desmond only frowned at this.

"You feeling okay, bud?" Rebecca asked him.

"Hah. Yeah. I'm just peachy," was the sarcastic reply. "I feel great, I love being all catheterized and in pain and shit."

Shaun wandered over to where Stacey was monitoring the baby. "Well, I'll be..." He stared down at the little boy. "Well... This puts all of that puking in a new light now. You really were up the duff all along."

"No," Desmond said loudly. "I just had a **stomach parasite**." He enunciated the last two words very firmly.  

Rebecca's forehead wrinkled. "That's not a very nice thing to call your kid."

"Shut up," Desmond growled through gritted teeth.

"D'you think this is what Sixteen meant?" Colin asked to nobody in particular, as he handed a package of infant formula to Stacey. "He mentioned somethin' about 'your son'."

"I don't have a fucking son!" Desmond rapidly propped himself up to a sitting position, eyes afire, then suddenly winced and fell back down. "Ow, fuck!"

Stacey was at his side instantly. "Careful! You shouldn't try to get up yet!"

"Oh, now you tell me!"

"I told you before!"

"What, while I was unconscious?! Never mind that. When **can** I get up?! When can I get up, get out of here, get away from **that**?!" He gestured angrily at the tub containing the "parasite".

"You've got to rest up for a couple of days, so the incisions can heal, okay?"

"No, I am not 'okay' with staying in here for two days!" He tried again to get up, but Stacey and Colin held him down. He struggled against them.

"You know you could dislodge the sutures if you keep strugglin' like that," Colin warned.

"I... I don't care..." Desmond insisted, even as he stopped fighting them. "I don't care." He was beginning to cry now. "Don't care. Don't want to... Don't... I can't..." His voice receded into unintelligible sobs.

"Get a hold of yourself, man!" Shaun said roughly. "The way you're carrying on, someone could well mistake **you** for a baby."

"Lay off him, Shaun!" Rebecca retorted. "Try putting yourself in his shoes! A **man** who had an unplanned pregnancy, and Juno's the mom! How would **you** feel?!"

"Plus postpartum depression," Colin addended.

Desmond continued to sob, not even listening to them anymore.

"You three had better leave for now," Stacey told them quietly. "I thought maybe he'd cheer up if he had some visitors, but it seems I was wrong."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter is short, sorry.
> 
> I seriously don't know where to go from here. This'll probably be the last update on this one for a long while.


	5. Admit It

Colin and Shaun left the infirmary, but Rebecca stayed. "How's Baby Miles?" she asked Stacey, keeping her voice low, out of Desmond's hearing range.

"Well, he's breathing a little better, but he's still very weak. We've got formula now, so hopefully his condition will improve with feeding."

Rebecca looked mournfully down at the tiny infant, but couldn't bear the sight, so averted her gaze to the heart monitor. Desmond seemed to be stable- physically if not emotionally- so Stacey had recently disconnected the monitor from him and attached it to the baby instead. "Wow. His heart's going a mile a minute. He must be scared as shit."

"No, that's a normal neonatal heart rate. But he probably is pretty scared."

"Do you think he's... in pain?"

"I don't think so. At least, I really hope not."

"Yeah... I... I hope he pulls through."

"We all hope he does, Rebecca."

"Desmond doesn't," she pointed out. "He's being a complete baby-hating bitch."

"Hey idiots! I can hear what you're saying over there!" came Desmond's voice, startling them. "Fucking Assassin eavesdropping skills, remember?"

Rebecca spun around to face him angrily. "Well it's true! You're being a baby-hating bitch!"

"I heard you the first time," he spat. "And I don't hate babies. I hate parasites."

"God, when are you going to get over yourself and admit you were pregnant!?"

" **Women** get pregnant. From **men** fucking them. I'm not a woman and no men fucked me. Therefore I can't have been pregnant. It's literally two kinds of impossible."

"We know you're still a man, Desmond," Stacey said. "We're not going to start treating you like a woman just because you happen to have a uterus, okay?"

Desmond frowned, staring up at the ceiling from his supine position.

Rebecca continued from where Stacey had left off. "We will, however, treat you like a giant asshole if you keep being one. We might even have to kick you out of the Assassins, and then you'll have to go join the Assholes instead."

He sniggered involuntarily, then clapped his hands over his mouth.

"Oh, big tough manly man can't let himself laugh at a little joke?"

Desmond swiveled his eyes to look at Rebecca and said, "No. It just fucking hurts when I laugh. Because of the stupid uterus."

"Yeah, you got a uterus. Good on you for admitting that." Rebecca then pointed to the makeshift incubator. "Now admit that Baby Miles came out of that uterus, and apologize to him."

"I don't wanna hear the words 'Baby Miles'," Desmond growled.

"Well you haven't given him a name!"

"Fine!" Desmond yelled. "His name's Perry the Parasite!"

Before anyone could respond to this, the baby began to make a noise, a sort of warbling gurgle, which was the first sound he'd made in his short life.

"I never thought I'd actually be relieved to hear a baby crying," Rebecca said.

"He's hungry, I think." Stacey offered a bottle of formula to the small boy, who clumsily tried to latch on but couldn't quite manage. "Ohh," the medic sighed sadly. "He'll have to be fed through a tube. Could you assist me?"

"Perry" wriggled feebly through the uncomfortable placement of the feeding tube, making a few more miserable mewling noises, but Desmond was silent and still, keeping his face a stone mask.

As Stacey finished securing the tube and started to drip formula through it, Rebecca spoke up again. "You said he has Desmond's genes? Who else is in the mix?"

"Well... the analysis didn't show a close match with anyone but Desmond."

Rebecca gasped. "You mean this kid is a clone?"

"No, it's not an **exact** match. But it is... unusual." She glanced at Desmond, who was frowning at the ceiling again. Then she lowered her voice again, forgetting his acute hearing. "The genome is a very strange mixture of human and," here she dropped her voice almost to a whisper, "First Civ DNA."

"Like me," Desmond croaked. The two women couldn't fail to detect the melancholy in his hoarse words. "He's ... Perry's like me." He slowly placed a hand on the surgical dressing, wincing from the pressure this action put on the angry incision underneath. "Because... he came from me."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh goodness. I'm still writing this.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahh another short chapter I'm sorry  
> chapter last edited August 11 2015

April 3, 2013

 

The specifics of Perry's failure to thrive were a mystery. Stacey hypothesized that he had some inborn error of metabolism, possibly stemming from his abnormal combination of Human and Precursor DNA. Whatever the root cause, the outcome was that he wasn't gaining weight no matter how much they fed him.

"But I have a bunch of their genes too, and I'm fine!" Desmond protested.

"Not the same way he does, okay?" Stacey offered an explanation. "Your genome is about twenty percent Precursor, since you're from a lineage of many humans who each had small **small** amounts of Precursor DNA. Whereas your son is somewhere near fifty percent."

Desmond winced and covered his face. "Don't say the S-word."

Stacey folded her arms, but the gesture was one of resignation, not anger or irritation. "I'll say 'child' if you prefer. But like it or not, he **is** yours."

"Can I get Juno to pay me child support?" Desmond grumbled into his hands. "'Cause otherwise I don't want anything to do with her rape-baby."

Rebecca frowned. "As long as we're complaining about word usage, I think you should watch how you use the R-word."

"I think it's appropriate here!" Desmond spat. "She used my body against my will and I got pregnant from it! Pretty open-and-shut, isn't it?"

"But there wasn't any sex involved," Rebecca pointed out.

Desmond threw his hands in the air. "Who the hell knows how Precursor sex works?! Maybe they don't have genitals, maybe they just mind-fuck each other! And Juno sure as hell fucked with my mind! Fucked it into a goddamn **coma** , remember?!"

Rebecca sighed. "Whatever. I'm just glad you're not calling him a parasite anymore."

"Well...." Desmond turned over onto his side, facing the infirmary wall. "I thought it over, and I decided that's not accurate. He's a rape-baby, not a parasite."

"Just don't call him that to his face."

"I won't, I'll call him Perry, 'cause that's his name." There was an unexpected warmth in Desmond's words, and it surprised even himself. He blinked and then forced his lips back into a frown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if you've read the epilogue of _Kryptokos_ you can probably figure out what happened here. Highlight for spoilery explanation:
> 
> basically, in the "canon" Kryptokos universe, Clay was able to fully replace the Precursor (Juno) DNA with his own human DNA, thus forming a fully human child and Desmond was able to have a somewhat normal pregnancy. However, in this divergent universe, Clay didn't quite manage it and the baby's DNA is some weird half-human shit so :P


	7. Strangers in the Night

Desmond woke to a strange high-pitched squeak. "Whazza fugga?" he mumbled drowsily, propping himself up on his elbows.

By the faint dawn light that fell through the infirmary's curtained windows, he managed to spot the clear plastic rectangle set up across the room. The noise was coming from within that makeshift incubator-cum-crib.

"Urgh. Stupid baby," Desmond grumbled, then raised his voice to issue a command, futile though he should have known it would be. "Shut your face! Shut your god damn face!"

The squeaky cries were, of course, undeterred. If anything, they just became louder.

"Urrrgh." Desmond grit his teeth and prepared to do something he hadn't been allowed to do in days: get out of bed.

He swiveled his legs over the side of the cot and planted his shaky feet on the tile floor. It felt like fucking **ice** , even through his socks, but he endured it. The next task was to get the rest of his body up. _Fucking hell, I feel so weak! Guess I shouldn't be surprised, the stupid thing's been draining my life force away for months!_

Desmond pulled himself to an unsteady verticality with the help of a nearby chair. Vague and formless angers plodded through his mind as he plodded across the infirmary. _ꟻ☭ &æʩⱹJuno! Ɑ§ʣʞApple! ⅁ϐʍɣǶuterus!_

When he reached his goal and looked down, wanting to shoot a fierce glare at the parasite, a sharp pain suddenly throbbed out into Desmond's sternum from somewhere deep inside him. "Jesus," he breathed, steadying himself with one hand on the table and the other over his chest.

The baby's face was small and incredibly wrinkled, but drawn tight with the effort of forcing out pained cries around the feeding tube attached there. Desmond's lip curled and quivered at the sight. He took the hand from his chest and formed it into a poking finger, then gingerly prodded a patch of tan-red skin right under the baby-blue cap he was wearing. "Hey. Stop it," Desmond said quietly. "Stop crying.... Stop crying?"

The baby's volume decreased ever-so-slightly. His tiny eyes opened a crack and Desmond's chest hurt again. _Brown eyes. Fuck. He has brown eyes._ Desmond couldn't say why this disconcerted him so, but it did. "Hey, c'mon dude. Shh."

A miniscule tear dripped from out of those disconcerting brown eyes.

"Shh. Don't waste all your energy crying, little guy. Everyone's trying like fuck to save your stupid life."

The baby paused his wailing to take a shuddering breath.

"Good," Desmond said. "You can breathe. That's good. Breathing is good."

As Desmond carefully wiped away the tear, a freakishly skinny arm flailed against his hand, and he jerked it back to his chest automatically, then let out a nervous chuckle. "Heh. You startled me. Some fucking hardass Assassin I am. Get startled by a baby." He slowly reached back down to stroke the child's heaving chest. Only at that point did he notice the extraordinary size difference between the two of them. _Jesus Christ. His whole hand is like the size of my thumb. Is that normal?_ He blinked and shook his head slightly to mentally chide himself. _Uh, earth to Desmond, of course it's not normal! He's super premature! He's supposed to still be growing inside you! He's not supposed to be born 'til nine months!_

Desmond closed his eyes and grimaced, hunching his shoulders. _No! He's **not** supposed to grow inside me at all, let alone for nine fucking months!_

 _But he did grow inside you,_ a small part of him spoke up. _He grew inside you and then he came out of you. Like it or not, he's part of your life now. Like it... or not._

The vague anger resumed, pulsing in his veins and causing his heart to beat faster, the beep-beep-beep of the monitor picking up pace to reflect it.

beep-beep-beep-bip-bip-bip-bip-bipbipbipbip

 _Wait, the monitor's not on **me**! _ Desmond's eyes snapped open, his gaze snapped to the jaggedy lines of neon on black. "Shit! Stacey!" he yelled, even louder than the baby's cries, which had stopped some time ago.

Then she was there suddenly, and Desmond flopped into a chair, resting his face heavily in his hands, as she muttered to herself, completely occupied with her attempt to solve whatever medical issue had just arose.

The formless angers were flooded away by a tidal wave of other emotions. Emotions Desmond wouldn't allow himself to give name to.

The beeping slowed, but Stacey's movements only became more frantic. She was saying something, saying a lot of things, but Desmond didn't hear. The infirmary lights were on and more people were there now, but Desmond didn't see. The floor was still ice, but Desmond didn't feel. All his senses were somehow tied into the rhythm of the heart monitor as it slowed

and slowed...

                                          and slowed...

                                                                                    and crescendoed into a sustained note of shrill finality.

Desmond curled up in a sobbing ball. His chest hurt. His stomach hurt. His eyes hurt.

His entire body and motherfucking **soul** hurt.


	8. Up in Smoke

The moment Stacey lightly brushed his shaking shoulder, Desmond leapt up from his chair and barricaded himself in the infirmary's bathroom. The air was even colder in there, but he didn't want warmth. Didn't deserve warmth. Not with the way he'd been acting.

He choked out a sob and wrapped his arms around his midsection, gown crinkling as he hugged the sore spot painfully tight. _God, no. This cannot be happening. I barely even got to see my son and now he's dying. Fuck me, I didn't even get to hold him or anything._

 _And whose fault is it that you didn't see him or hold him before?_ Acid remembrances sizzled on his conscience. _"I never want to see it. Take it away from here."_

_They're right, I'm a complete asshole, it should be **me** that's dying, not Perry. _ He squeezed his eyes shut, tortured by terrible mental images of the frail baby lying motionless, of the monitor lines growing erratic. _Perry can't die, he just can't._ _He can't die, he won't die, they won't let him die._

Thoughts of newborn Ezio, who'd needed words of encouragement from loving father Giovanni to stir into life, haunted him. How differently would history have played out if that baby hadn't made it? The entire Auditore line would have been snuffed out in a day by the Pazzi conspiracy. Everything Ezio had done, for the Assassins, for Italy, for the world... all of it thrown to the void.

And Desmond Miles would not exist.

And the world would burn.

His teeth ground together and he tried to wipe that catastrophic thought spiral away. _That's stupid, Perry isn't Ezio! And anyway Maria and Giovanni wanted a baby. They were prepared for a baby. I didn't, I wasn't._

Then his teeth unground and another sob escaped him. _But that doesn't excuse me treating him like shit. Dad's right. No matter how I feel about Juno and what she did to me, Perry's just a tiny innocent baby and he deserves better. He's gonna pull through, he's gotta pull through, because I gotta apologize for how I treated him._

A short series of thumps vibrated through his body: he had his back against the bathroom door and someone was knocking. "Desmond?" It was William, harsh and accusatory. "What did you do?"

Desmond crumpled onto all fours. "Nothing!" he screamed into the rug, tears running rampant now. "I didn't do shit, Dad, Perry was crying, and I went to try to calm him down, and I just barely touched him, and his eyes, oh god, he has **my eyes** , Dad! He has my eyes and my genes and I- I just barely touched him, I swear!" He would have continued the rambling but he had to stop talking to take a few ragged breaths.

"Oh." William paused a moment and then spoke again. "Well..."

"The next two words outta your mouth better be 'He's fine!'" Desmond's throat was so raw it felt like burning.

But no next words came at all. Only a muffled exhalation and footsteps that receded away from the door.

"No..." Desmond crumpled even further. A small part of him thought this was a terrible dream. Another small part groped frantically in a non-existent Animus menu for some sort of do-over option. This sudden love and sudden loss were too cruel to be real and permanent. "No, no, no, **no**!" He pounded his fists on the floor with each iteration of denial. "Come on, Dad, Stacey, somebody tell me he's fine! Tell me he's fine and you took him off the heart monitor 'cause he's fine and that's why- oh god, I'm sorry, Perry! I'm sorry!" He repeated the apology dozens, hundreds of times, pounding the tiles until his hands were numb with pain that almost matched his heartache.

 

* * *

 

They buried him in a stand of trees near the perimeter of the Compound. Desmond didn't attend the funeral, if you could even call it that. The gathering was completely unintended, but somehow, by some collective unconscious drive, the rest of the Assassins had converged under the trees, uneasily watching William place the little wooden box into the comparatively large hole.

An unforgiving wind whistled through the forest, drying tear tracks on several faces.

After the grave was filled in, William, on the spur of the moment, attempted a short eulogy. "Ah... Baby Miles... or rather, Perry... he wasn't... we, ah... Desmond..." His usually-confident voice now wavered with various unruly emotions. He coughed, then tried again. "...It goes without saying that Perry was... a surprise. When we... when I found out Desmond was pregnant... I was shocked. Very shocked. As was he, of course. As anyone would be."

There were slight nods and hums of assent from the group.

"He made it crystal clear that he wanted to..." William's eyes twitched closed, and he finished the sentence as quickly as possible, so fast the words were almost indecipherable, "terminate the pregnancy."

Another gust of wind blew, rustling leaves over the small unmarked mound.

"We can't honestly fault him, can we? For not wanting to go through with it. But... the situation was such that it wasn't possible." William reopened his eyes, fixing his gaze stubbornly on the empty air. "I hoped at least for the child to be healthy. But, as so often is the case, hoping was not enough."

The others waited for him to continue, but he appeared to have exhausted his words. Spencer stepped forward and looked down at the tiny grave. "Rest in peace, Perry. You, uh...." He wiped away a stray tear. "Your suffering's over, li'l guy. Rest in peace."

The forlorn cry of an eagle echoed from someplace far off and unseen.


	9. No Cure For Death

They all returned as best they could to their normal routine. All except for Desmond, who stayed in the bathroom for many more hours.

After the first thirty minutes, William was vociferously concerned, and would have bust down the door to ensure his son's well-being had Stacey not emphatically reassured him that Desmond was medically all right.

"I really think he just needs some time to himself, to cope with..." She wiped her eyes. "To cope with... this event."

From inside his self-imposed confinement, Desmond heard her words and burst out with renewed crying. _'Event'. Is that all Perry was to them?_ He twisted the hem of his gown in fists of turmoil until it split apart. _Not a person that died from lack of love. Just some 'event'._

William clenched his jaw at the fresh sounds of sorrow and looked from the bathroom door to Stacey and back again. "All right. I'll... I'll trust your judgement here. Just... make sure he's... make sure he doesn't..." He wasn't able to muster up any specifics.

"I'll do my best," she said quietly, her soft blue eyes barely meeting his steely gray ones.

"Sometimes 'best' isn't good enough."

Stacey looked at the floor.

William stepped back. "I... I shouldn't have said that," he muttered, almost too quietly to be heard.

"It's okay," she said. "Just... just go. I think we all need some time alone to cope."

William took a breath, nodded curtly, and left the infirmary.

 

* * *

 

Desmond's mind replayed all the deaths he'd ever witnessed, in his life and the lives of his ancestors, but none of them compared to this one.

"I'm sorry, Per," he whispered, mouth dry, eyes wet. _It's not fair._

"I'm sorry." _It shoulda been me._

"I'm sorry." _I was ready to die in the Temple._

"I'm sorry." _Maybe Perry's the reason I survived._

"I'm sorry." _I chose to be a sacrifice, but he didn't have a choice._

"I'm sorry." _He saved me and I killed him._

"I'm sorry." _He's my son and I killed him._

No matter how many times he said it, it could never be enough. Perry could never hear those useless words. Tears could never bring him back. There was no medicine that could heal Desmond's trauma. There was no god that could absolve his sin.

Blubbered repetitions of guilty sentiment intertwined with Desmond's sobs until he at last cried himself to a fitful sleep on the cold floor, still haunted by innocent echoes of frail squeaky cries.

 

* * *

 

Eventually Desmond did have to leave the looming embrace of the bathroom, awoken by the unbearable growl in his stomach. He faltered to his feet and groped in the darkness to unlock the door. It was past midnight, and Stacey, it seemed, had left her post.

Without thinking, he glanced to his right, to the oxygen tank and the heart monitor and all the rest.

He flinched shut his eyes a millisecond later, but it was too late: the cold sight of the plastic incubator already mocked him with its emptiness. _Perry's not there._

Desmond pressed his hand against the cesarean scar again. _He's not in here either._

_He's gone._

_I wanted him gone, and now he's gone._

_Fuck._

He encountered no-one on his slow silent journey through the darkened halls to the kitchen. Once there, he froze with his hand on the fridge handle, remembering a vignette from mid-March, from the time when his pregnancy had been semi-secret.

_"Desmond, there's plenty more left." Stacey pushed the platter of grilled eggplant toward him._

_"I can see that, I'm not blind."_

_"Have another serving, Desmond," William said, then hastily added, "Miss Crane worked hard on this meal, so-"_

_"I'm not hungry." He stood up, keeping his posture hunched over to conceal the small fatness that felt huge._

_"You barely ate anything," Stacey said, looking worried. "Are you feeling naus-"_

_"I'm fine!" Desmond spat. "I'm fucking fine! What, you gonna put me in timeout if I don't eat all my veggies?! I'm a grown-ass man!" He opened the fridge, stuck his head in, frowned. "Where's my birthday beers?"_

_"I've hidden them," William said icily, ignoring the curious looks this drew from Shaun, Spencer, and Rebecca._

_Desmond rounded on his father, teeth bared. "What the fuck, Dad? Gimme back my-"_

_"You shouldn't be drinking alcohol," William cut in, the words slow and deliberate._

_"Why not, Bill?" Spencer asked._

_"Yeah, Dad," Desmond sneered. "Why not? I'm a twenty-six year old **man** , why can't I have a beer?"_

_William didn't say anything, but his fingers clenched around his water glass._

Desmond's fingers clenched around the handle. Spencer had ended up helping him find the hidden beer. Together they'd taken care of the six-pack, walked along the lakeshore, trading laughs and jokes. He had thrown up, from drunkenness this time, not from the baby he pretended not to feel trembling inside him.

Now he banged his head against the fridge, hoping for blissful amnesia, but it only brought forth another memory, a fragment of wisdom from Ezio to Sofia.

_"To say that 'everything is permitted' is to understand that we are the architects of our actions, and that we must live with their consequences, whether glorious or tragic."_

He wanted to cry but his tears were spent. He banged his head on the fridge again and sent himself to his room without eating anything.

 

* * *

 

When Stacey got up a few hours later, the first thing she did was rush to check on Desmond. After discovering he wasn't in the infirmary bathroom any longer, she checked his room, and found him curled in a ball on his bed, still wearing the ragged medical gown, his body shaking with silent sobs. "I'm sorry...." she heard him say. She thought he was still talking to Perry, thought he hadn't noticed her, but as she turned to leave, he called out louder, "I'm sorry, Stace."

So she turned back to him. "Desmond. You don't have to be sorry."

"Yeah I do. I fucked up. Royally. He... My son..." Desmond almost couldn't say the word, so great was the heartache it inflamed within him. "When I saw him I couldn't deny it anymore. Perry's my son. My **son** , Stace." His voice, already high-pitched, cracked further. "He inherited my eyes and my genes and who knows what else... Nobody knows what else.... Because now he's gone."

"We did everything we could, Desmond," Stacey said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "You know that."

"Yeah, you guys did. Once he was out." He rolled over, his face a twist of self-loathing, skin puffy and red around the eyes. "I did fuck-all. No, I did worse than that. I probly made him come early, 'cuz I didn't..." He sobbed again. "Didn't eat right, didn't take it easy, didn't **anything** I shoulda done once I found out about him."

"I can't blame you, Desmond. The pregnancy was a severe shock for you. Physically as well as emotionally."

He seemed not to hear her words of mollification. "Fucking climbing, fucking leaps of faith, fucking drinking goddamn beers? These aren't things a pregnant person of any gender should do."

"I don't think any of that is the reason you went into premature labor. Even if it is, you know beating yourself up about it won't do any good."

"Maybe if I'd shown one god-damn ounce of affection for him," Desmond spat, "maybe that woulda given him the strength to pull through." Stacey tried to interject, but he forged on. "I was the shittiest father ever. Even worse than Haytham, by an order of magnitude. Y'know, he tried to kill **his** son too, but at least he had the decency to get to know him first. And at least Connor was able to fight back."

Stacey had by now come to stand by his bed. "Desmond," she breathed, "you didn't kill him."

"I as good as killed him," he said, sitting up and gripping the edge of the mattress tightly.

"You... you're feeling guilty. And it's okay to feel that. It's-"

A dry hacking sob from Desmond cut her off. "No. I'm so fucking far off from 'okay'. My fucking **son** is **dead** , don't you get it?!"

"Of course, we all do!" Stacey said, her face awash with tears. "And we're all grieving for him."

Desmond shook his head. "Grieving doesn't do shit. I don't want to grieve anymore," he said firmly, and looked into her eyes. "I want to make amends."

She didn't know what he meant, and it showed in her expression.

"I want to make amends, and I'll find a way to do it, Stacey." His features were resolute, angry yet controlled. "I **will** find a way. I can't live with myself otherwise."

"I... well... Whatever you need to do to be at peace with what happened, Desmond." She patted his back gently. "We're... we're here to support you."

His face shifted to a trembling semi-smile. Stacey felt uneasy at the sight of it. Then Desmond got up from the bed, slowly put his arms around her, and sobbed silently into her shoulder. She endured the hug, wishing she could bear some of the pain overflowing in his heart.

  

_End Part One: Cradle to Grave_


	10. Father Before the Grave

"Desmond?" The bedroom door opened a crack to allow William's cautious greeting. "Son?'

 _Son. Son._ Desmond couldn't help but fixate on that word. He'd spent the night in a sleepless nightmare filled with children, a mishmash of ancestors and imaginings; baby Ezio, little Petrucchio, teenaged Sef and Darim, and others he couldn't name; a black-haired boy holding a skull and smiling widely; a blonde first-grader with sweaty palms saying he wanted to be an astronaut, a sweet little girl cradling her infant brother and singing a lullaby....

William pushed the door open further. "Come on, son, I-"

"Dammit!" Desmond slammed a fist against the wall. "Stop saying that word, asshole!"

"I'm sorry? What word?"

"No." Desmond clenched his eyes shut. "Don't make me say it. Just go away." He heard the door bottom brush against the carpet, heard footsteps pad closer against his wishes.

"You should come eat something."

Desmond ground his teeth together.

"You're... you still need to recover your strength," William said. He was speaking much more quietly than his usual, but with the same firm force underlying the words. "From the surgery."

Desmond's lips moved with inaudible words.

William leant closer. "What?"

"What if," Desmond repeated slowly, "I don't want to recover?"

William frowned and grabbed his arm, tried to pull him up from the bed, but he stubbornly refused. "Desmond, stop this! You're being ridiculous!" Gone was the quiet voice. "Come and eat something!"

"Don't wanna."

William pulled his arm harder. "Stop it, Desmond, you're acting like a goddamn ch-" He suddenly realized and closed his throat before the half-formed word could make its way out.

But Desmond already knew what the word was and he whipped the arm at William, slapping him away. "Go!" he snarled. "Shut up and leave me alone!"

"Desmond, please... Starving yourself won't bring him back."

"Eating won't bring him back either," Desmond retorted, voice breaking.

"Desmond, don't do this. Be reasonable."

"Leave. Me. Alone," Desmond spat, then curled back up in a ball and began to weep again.

And so William left him alone.

 

* * *

 

Desmond laid in bed for hours on end. Stacey also tried to convince him to come to dinner- or, failing that, to eat the food she brought to his bedside- but he ignored both her and the plate of pork chops.

He slipped in and out of the waking world, but his lapses out of it were too anguished to qualify as real sleep.

Late after midnight he finally sat up, a pained look set upon his face. This look was partly due to the grim reality of his situation, and partly to the shooting agony in his gut caused by sitting up. He groaned and fought through the pain to get dressed.

 

* * *

 

He slipped outside the building with second-nature stealth, then turned to face the forest. Eagle Vision revealed the path the other Assassins had walked, and he followed the blood-red trail with a heavy heart and a deep sigh. When he reached his destination he closed his eyes and firmly switched off his second sight before looking down at the ground.

The disturbed patch of dirt, interrupting the lively growth of grass and wildflowers around it, reached out and gripped Desmond's soul in its desolate hold. Swallowing back a dry sob, he fell to his knees.

 _He's in there. God, fuck. That's it. No gravestone or nothing even. Fuck.... Now what?_ Desmond wasn't sure anymore what he'd come out here for. A few ants crawled over his hand as he stared blankly at the dirt. The first red-orange flames heralding the sunrise were barely visible through the thick forest canopy. Right now, for him, the whole world was shades of terrible darkness.

After a few minutes he came back to himself, flicked the ants away. "H-" he began, intending to say "Hi", but the word was too casual and thus it choked in his throat.

Fingers raked gently over the bare earth, drawing faint lines in a desperate attempt to **connect**. "Perry... I..." He choked again. "I'm sorry" also felt too casual. A couple of teardrops fell into the dry earth. "I wish you were still alive, Perry," he finally managed to say, trembling as the words left him. "Alive and healthy. It's my fault you're not." Desmond rubbed his tearful face, not noticing or caring that this left a muddy dirt streak. "I'm not buying that shit about your genes being messed up. It's my fault, and I wish I didn't treat you so shitty, I wish I didn't make you get born early, I wish I didn't **fuck up your life** before it even **started!** " He threw his head back and shouted this last part to the heavens, then let out a sob and sat back on his heels.

A bird cawed somewhere. The sound was ugly and evil, and it acted as a harsh accusation, an accusation Desmond readily accepted. He tore his guilty eyes away from the grave and got back to his feet, wincing with pain as he did so _._  Pressing a hand to his stomach automatically, he could feel that the bandage over his incision was coming off, so he pulled his shirt up and clumsily re-stuck it.

He gave the tiny grave another look, burning it into his consciousness forever. How long would it take for the greenery to grow back over that bare spot? for the façade of life to mask the reality of death?

"Perry," he breathed. The name he'd originally spat out as a glib epithet was now infused with heartfelt emotion. "I'll... never forget you, Perry. I..." He wiped his eyes again. "I'm so, **so** , sorry. I mighta been a good dad, if I'd tried. I wish there was some way... some way I could..." He trailed off into thoughtfulness, slowly blinked, then looked up at the golden dawn.


	11. To Somebody, Somewhere

The brilliant glow of the sunrise was alive with newfound possibility. A barely-visible smile cracked Desmond's face. "I'll be back, Per," he promised, bending down and patting the dirt. One last tear fell before he straightened up and returned the way he'd come.

Colin was just leaving the building and spotted Desmond faltering out of the forest. "Um... you..." The younger Assassin seemed not to know what to say. "You were out there."

"Yeah." Desmond took a breath to steady himself, hoping his face wasn't as tear-stained as it felt.

Colin would've had to be blind not to notice the wet streaks, though. "Were you... sayin'... Oh, stupid question." He shook his head. "Of course you were sayin' bye."

"No," Desmond spat without thinking. "It's not goodbye yet."

"Uh?"

Desmond bit his tongue. "Never mind." 

"You feelin' all right?"

"I'm fine." He shoved past Colin and into the building, then down the hallway towards the storage room. That was where it was. Where it had been ever since they got here in deepest December.

But William called out his name as he passed by the kitchen, and some lingering sense of obedience to father-slash-mentor made him stop walking and turn to see what he wanted, though he put on a mild glare of irritation as well.

"You're... you're up." William's face was a mix of surprise and faint happiness.

"Yes, I'm up," Desmond said through bared teeth. "It doesn't do any good for me to just lie down and waste away. Now if you're done saying stupid obvious shit, then I got shit to do."

Quick as a flash, William's face was neutral and hard again. He got up and strode over to Desmond. "You haven't eaten for nearly twenty-four hours, and you're still healing from the surgery," he said sternly. "Believe me, Desmond, I'm glad you want to return to duty, but we've got to make sure you're in decent condition for it. Come eat something, then we'll have Ms. Russ check you over."

Desmond glared harder. He didn't want to go back to any stupid Assassin duties. There weren't any, anyway, not out here in the middle of Buttcrack, Vermont. His singular desire was to get the Apple and follow up on his recently-hatched idea. But then his legs wobbled suddenly under him, and William had to steady him from losing his balance. "Fuck. Fine," he spat. "I'll eat and I'll go see the doc." He had to grudgingly admit that his stupid body's fatigue, hunger, and lingering pain were a trio of stumbling blocks in his path. "But then will you leave me the fuck alone?"

William didn't answer the question, just guided him to a chair and pushed a steaming bowl of oatmeal in front of him. "I was about to eat this, but you may have it while I fix another serving for myself." There was a rare hint of warmth in his voice. He picked up a spoon and held it out.

Still frowning, Desmond grabbed the spoon and started to eat.

William made a small "Mm" sound and nodded. "We have fresh eggs, too. Do you prefer scrambled or fried?"

"Fuck off," Desmond muttered, mouth full.

William sighed and went to the stove. Time flew by, and just as Desmond had finished the oatmeal and pushed the bowl away, a plate of fried eggs and a glass of milk were set firmly in its place. He wanted to protest, but... he **was** pretty damn hungry.

 

* * *

 

Stacey prodded the incision with a gentle finger. Desmond couldn't help letting out the same small sharp "Ah!" that he'd done the first time the Animus input had been jabbed into his arm.

She looked up at him with sad eyes. "Still hurts, huh."

"No, this is my new thing: I make sounds of pain just randomly!" Desmond spat at her. "Of fucking course it still hurts! Especially when you poke it like that!"

"Sorry."

Desmond sighed. "No, don't apologize. I know you're just doing your job."

"And I know this is hard for you, okay?"

Desmond sighed again.

Stacey patted his shoulder lightly, then sat back. "Well, I don't see any signs of internal bleeding, so the internal sutures must be holding up well enough. And externally, it doesn't look infected or anything."

"Yeah, it just looks like a fucking knife wound in my guts. Fan-fucking-tastic. Can I go now?"

Small feathers of hair fell out of place as she tilted her head quizzically. "Do you... have something urgent to do?"

Not wanting to meet her eyes, Desmond got up from the cot and put his shirt back on. "Just... I don't like this place. This room. Bad memories." This was true, if not exactly the actual answer to her question.

"Oh." She briefly glanced over to the space next to the window: where the makeshift incubator had been. It was put away now, no longer needed. "I understand." She gave him a sad almost-smile. "You're free to go, then. Just take things easy the next few weeks, okay?"

 

* * *

 

Once more Desmond headed down the hall towards the storage area, but when he drew near, he heard Shaun's caustic voice coming from an adjacent room.

"-just don't see why he's so bloody broken up about it. We've got enough to deal with as it is, never mind some dodgy half-Isu brat running around and mucking things up."

Incensed, Desmond followed the voice to its source and flung open the library door. "Hello!" he yelled by way of announcing his arrival.

Shaun jerked away from Rebecca to face him, eyes wide and jaw slack. "Er... hello."

"Sorry!" Desmond yelled in a mockery of politeness. "But I couldn't help over **hearing** your conver **sation**!"

Rebecca held up her hands. "Don't look at me, I didn't say nothing."

"Okay then!" Still shouting, Desmond stepped right up to Shaun, towering over his puny seated form. "Well if you don't **mind!** I'm just trying to cope with the death of my 'brat' **son**! Sorry you didn't **like** him!"

Shaun hastened to defend himself. "Listen, right? I've got nothing against him personally, I was just saying perhaps it's all for the best that he-"

Desmond gripped Shaun's shoulders vicelike. "Shut the **fuck** up," he growled. "Every. Death. Is a. Tragedy." He gave Shaun's body four meaningful shakes, then released him. "Especially this one," he finished in a sob.

"Er. Right." Shaun coughed. "Why were you headed over this way anyway? Did you need something?"

"An **apology!** Would be **nice**!"

"Right! I'm sorry!"

"It's not that **simple**!"

Shaun stood up and shoved him away. "Look, mate, you asked for an apology, and I gave you one!"

"I'm not your fucking 'mate'!" Desmond felt a hand on his shoulder. "What?!"

It was Rebecca. "Look, we all know Shaun's an asshole."

"Oi, don't say that like I'm not right here!"

She ignored him and continued calmly. "But I know you're better than this, Des. Just try to chillax."

Desmond breathed heavily and noisily for several seconds. His first instinct had been to snap back that his son was fucking **dead** and thus "chillaxing" was out of the question. But he had a plan now, and that gave him strength. 

Rebecca gestured to the shelves around them. "You wanna read a book or something to get your mind off things?"

"Okay!" Desmond spat.

Rebecca smiled weakly and stepped a few inches back from his still-boiling rage. "Any specific sorta book you'd prefer? I'll help you find it."

"Yes!" His eyes flashed. "Bring me Altaïr's Codex please!"

Rebecca covered her ears. "Sure thing, but you gotta stop screaming at me."

Altaïr was enough of an icon to the Assassins that even a crap-ass den like this one had a copy of his Codex. Rebecca brought it to him: a largish affair, but not too thick or heavy, bound in faux leather with the sharp geometry of their Brotherhood's crest embossed in the cover. He rewarded her with an asymmetrical grin, then sat down in a corner and began to devour it page by page.


	12. Someday The Light of Love

  
_I am not the first one to contemplate this, nor will I be the last. This Apple holds great power._  
_It promises us what we desire. But the promises are too often hollow and meaningless. The line_  
_between this world and the world of the dead is too sharply drawn. No, it is no mere line, but a gaping_  
_chasm. Only phantoms can cross from there to here. Phantoms that, in the end, only cause more_  
_heartbreak, for they are a mere reflection of memories held in our minds, not truly the- ---desired-_

The passage stuttered and cut off. In smaller text, there was a notation stating that the remainder of the page had suffered extensive water and mold damage. "Fuck," Desmond said, and Shaun, who'd been watching him closely from a couple chairs over, frowned.

"Something wrong?"

Renoticing the historian's presence, Desmond waved the book in the air. "Hey asshole." Now he sounded only irritated, not fully enraged. "Do we have the original?"

Shaun was thrown a bit by this sudden request. "The Arabic original?"

"Uh, derr. Do we have it or not?" Desmond pressed.

"No. Not here, at any rate."

Desmond slammed the book down. "Then where?"

"What do you need the original for?"

"There might be a mistranslation."

"If there is, I doubt you'd do any better of a job," Shaun scoffed, returning to his own reading material. "And it's on a wholly separate continent from this one, anyway."

"So I'm just supposed to trust what this says?" Desmond jabbed a furious finger at the codex's cover.

Shaun lowered his book again, eyebrows quirked. "Trust it on what, exactly?"

Desmond grit his teeth. "Never mind," he spat, getting up from the floor, thighs tingling as their circulation returned after being sat on for nearly half an hour. He shoved the book onto a random shelf on his way out of the library. _Fucking Altaïr, what does he know?_

He came across Spencer in the hall ("Doing all right, Desmond?") and dodged his attempt at conversation. ("Can't talk. Stuff to do.")

Spencer was a little dubious ("Stuff to do? You're back on duty already?") but Desmond tuned his face to tearful again and drove him away. ("S-stop bugging me!")

Then, for the third time, he was standing before the storage room. He held his breath a beat, almost daring the universe to throw another goddamned stall tactic at him.

But nothing came, so he turned the knob and entered.

 

* * *

 

He couldn't say how exactly he'd unlocked the safe, nor how he'd gotten back outside with nobody the wiser, but the next thing he knew, he was in the clearing again, pulling Ezio's Apple of Eden from the folds of his grimy jacket.

His pulse raced slowly- **bump. bump. bump.** \- and the Apple seemed to vibrate his arm to the same rhythm, whispering inhuman voices up into his mind underneath the loud heartbeat.

The voices wanted chaos and war. Desmond ignored them. All he wanted was to make amends.

He swallowed the mucousy moisture rising in his throat, and focused his attention on the ground.

 _Bring him back,_ he commanded the artifact.

Golden lines began to tease out from its surface, waving in the air like uncertain fern fronds.

 _I fucking know you can do it._ Desmond gave the Apple a quick shake, as if it were the leash of a misbehaving dog, causing the fronds to turn linear and aim themselves at the bare dirt. _Bring. Him. Back._

The air was warmer around him now. He breathed out and back in slowly, controlled, specific. _Alive. Healthy._ He curled his free arm against his chest, ready to receive. _Bring him back. Let me hold him again._

A glowing mist shimmered on his curled arm, starting to coalesce into a blanketed bundle. But there was no weight to it. It was a phantom; a fucking illusion.

Desmond scowled, willing the mist away before it formed any further details. "Don't fuck with me!" he hissed at the Apple, gripping it tighter, almost white-knuckled. "Bring him back for real!"

There was a rustling somewhere behind him, and he lost focus, snapping his head around, the Apple instantly dim again.

But Eagle Vision showed there was nobody there. Just a snake slithering along the ground.

Desmond exhaled and turned his attention back, deciding not to speak aloud anymore lest he draw the attention of a human next time.

 _Bring him back, dammit._ Brilliant lines relit and fell upon the grave, highlighting his sad handprints from the last visit. _Get him out of there and back into my arms. Or back into my belly if he needs to grow in there some more._ He grit his teeth. _I mean it. I'll do the whole pregnancy over if I have to. Start again from scratch._

Photons probed through the earth, through wood, wrappings, body, bone. The details streamed back to Desmond, and he couldn't stop them forming an image, far more detailed than his mind could really comprehend.

Translocation. Malformation. Disintegration.

 _It's not too late, right?_ Silent tears ran down Desmond's face. _It's only been, what, a day?_

His arm sagged with the weight of the Apple; with the weight of fading hope.

 _Bring him back._ The command was now a plea. _I swear I'll be good. Just bring him back._

The sad image in his mind throbbed, terrible and insistent. His hand was way too warm, and the burn scars up his forearm were starting to prickle with pain. He held on to the hot metal for a few seconds more before tossing it away with an angry sob and collapsing.

As he lay there on his back, all alone in the forest, visions started to fade in and dance around him. These were illusions of a different sort; leather-clad tykes out for a carefree game of hide and seek.

Desmond closed his eyes to block out the Bleeding. But what he couldn't block out any longer was the truth.

Perry would never get to play like that in these woods.

Perry would never get to play at all.

Because Perry was dead, and the Apple truly could not bring him back to life.

 

* * *

 

He lay there, lifeless, as if in solidarity with his child, for countless time- nearly an hour- before he couldn't bear being there anymore. He was in such a fog of despair that he nearly forgot the Apple, but at the last second a whisper reminded him. He wrapped the muddy thing in his hoodie and shoved the whole mess under his bed just before falling on the sheets face-first.

 _Goodbye, Perry._... _Except this isn't "good" at all._ He grimaced into the pillow.

"Desmond?" He lifted his head a tiny fraction. It was Stacey, wide-eyed with relief. "My god, when did you get back inside?"

"J- just now." Desmond wiped dirt and tears from his face.

"You were out there so long; we were starting to get worried." She turned her head and mouthed "Found him" down the hall to someone.

"Stace... I'm sorry."

"This wasn't your fault, okay? Perry just... his body wasn't..."

"Yeah." The terrible details the Apple had shown him were still fresh in Desmond's mind. "I know his body was messed up." He sat up, gut aching. "But his body was inside my body. I shoulda done a better job growing him."

A little frustrated, Stacey rubbed the side of her head.

"Are you sure you had to cut him out?" Desmond asked suddenly.

"There was no other way, Desmond," she said gently.

"You're really sure?"

She shifted uneasily. "Well, I looked around a little during the surgery, and your uterus wasn't connected to anything that I could see. And he would have been extremely preterm no matter how he was born."

"No, I mean couldn't you made him stay in longer? Develop more?"

Stacey exhaled and sat down next to him. "I'm sorry, Desmond. I tried tocolytic medicines, but for whatever reason, they weren't stopping your labor."

Desmond slumped forward despondently. "Dammit... he's gone. He's really gone." He wrapped his arms around himself, and tears started to drip into his lap. "I... I didn't even get to fucking hold him, Stace," he said, voice breaking. "Why didn't I hold him, just once, before it was too late?!"

She didn't answer.

"If I'd just... given him a chance..." Desmond let out a hacking cough-sob. "I can't fucking believe it. He was right there with me the whole time and I never even acknowledged him. Just left him all alone in that stupid box."

Stacey put a cautious hand on his back. "You were there at the end, weren't you?"

"Just barely.... It wasn't enough. I still remember how he felt." Desmond's fingers grasped the empty air as he reminisced. "He was so soft. So frail.... He smelled... nice." His grasping fingers found Stacey's other hand.

Sensing his need, she held his hand tightly and moved her arm around his shoulder to side-hug him close.

"You smell nice," he said without thinking, brain numb.

The world froze for a moment.

Then before either of them knew it they were kissing; they were kissing and it felt incredible; frantic and heedless. Neither one had been close to another person in this way for so long.

Desmond's hands gradually wandered from Stacey's, roaming up her arms, caressing her shoulders through her shirt, then back down, cupping her breasts, lightly squeezing, inciting little gasps into his mouth.

He leaned further into the kiss and fumbled sightless with the buttons on her shirt, but was unable to open it, his hands were shaking so much. So he returned to touching her through the fabric, stroking and flicking the nubs of her nipples. She shuddered and gasped again, and Desmond felt emboldened by this positive response.

He wrapped his arms around her, left her lips and started to mouth his way clumsily down her neck.

"Oh!" Stacey pushed him away, and he panted heavily, wordlessly asking her why.

"Desmond, I..." She swallowed. "I'm... I think..."

"Stacey," he whispered, trailing two fingers through her hair.

"I'm not ready for this."

He instantly dropped his hands back to his side. "Oh... you wanna stop. Okay." He took a deep breath through his nose and let it out noisily through his mouth, then said "Okay" again.

"Okay," Stacey echoed, the word breathless and slightly questioning.

"Yeah. I get it." Desmond ran a hand over his head. "Come to think of it, I'm not really in the mood for... y'know... either. I just wanted to...." _To touch someone, to not feel alone, to forget my mistakes, to drown out the grief._ He wasn't sure which was the most honest end to that sentence.

She scooted a few inches away from him. "I think I understand."

"Sorry," Desmond said for about the thousandth time that day. He stared down at his feet. "I'm an asshole."

"No, you're not." Stacey lifted his chin. "Maybe another time. It's just... things are complicated."

"You got that right." Desmond breathed deeply, trying to flush out his whirlwind of emotions.

"I think maybe you should... take a nap." She smiled for a moment. "Stay in bed for the rest of the day. Doctor's orders."

"...Right." The word left Desmond's throat as a small croak. He rubbed tears out of his eyes and lay down.

"If you need anything, just let me know. Me or anyone else," Stacey said, smoothing her hair back into place.

He turned over on his side and gurgled an acknowledging "Eyuuuh."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy halloween... and happy one-year anniversary of this fic


End file.
